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IMHO, and not to be disrespectful, "Aikido" is name brand recognition, and is only "Aikido" if it can be traced back to the founder and organization that holds the copyright (though I am unsure if the name was ever legally copyrighted by U.S. standards), O'Sensei and the Ueshiba family.

IMHO Aikido shares techniques and elements with many different arts. Specific elements would be the emphasis on blending and taking balance.

Lynn Seiser PhD
Yondan Aikido & FMA/JKD
We do not rise to the level of our expectations, but fall to the level of our training. Train well. KWATZ!

[*]What are the basic elements of Aikido?[*]Are the basic elements of Aikido immutable?[*]Were the basic elements of Aikido ever codified by O-Sensei or anyone else?[*]What criteria can be applied to evaluate whether or not your Aikido includes the basic elements?[*]Feel free to insert your own point(s).[/list]

It should be:

What are the basic elements of your organization?

How and why has Aikido changed in the last 80 years?

How did the basic elements of Aikido taught by O-Sensei change over the years he taught?

I liked something that was put up as one of O sensei's sayings:
In these teachings
Listen most
To the rhythm of the strike and thrust
To train in the basics (omote)
Is to practice the very secrets of the art

I don't know how relevent it is, but really wanted to write it down
Anat

Basic elements of (unarmed) aikido:
1. Sword cutting and controlling the centre line (good posture and centre etc)
2. Taking balance from the start (or using uke's displaced centre) and continuing it into the technique as a single movement.
3. not fighting force with force
4. using force only where uke is completely unable to resist
5. adapting to the situation as it is NOW (and not your expectations of the situation)
6. Understanding that your attacker is no less human than you are

I think Aiki, is what makes Aikido different then other martial arts. My small definition of Aiki is the ability to move within someone (or some thing) else's rhythm. Other then that Aikido is just some Japanese Jujutsu, and some foreigners (non Japanese) wearing dress's.

[*]Were the basic elements of Aikido ever codified by O-Sensei or anyone else?

Sure he "codified" them... he just used traditional metaphors (mostly borrowed from the Chinese and Shinto, it appears) to obscure (in the tradtional manner of Asian martial obscuring) what he wanted to keep hidden yet to show that he knew it:

"open your feet to the **six directions, N, S, E, W, Up and Down**"

"Aiki-- the power which harmonizes all things: Never stop polishing [that jewel], You who tread this Path."

"The **Divine Will** (try "mind intent") permeating body and soul is the blade of Aiki: Polish it, make it shine throughout this world of ours!"

"Aiki-- [its mysteries] can never be encompassed by the brush or by the mouth. Do not rely on words to grasp it; attain enlightenment through practice!"

"Takemusu is the harmonization of Creation's **fire and water**; that interaction is the Divine Techniques of GI and MI.

"Brave and intrepid, the cross and path of harmonyh is an instrument of the gods. Utilize the **Eight Great Powers** to sustain the Divine Plan."

"Kototama (try "vibrations of ki")-- seething throughout the cosmos: In the plains of Heaven, in the dceep sea, one vast mountain echo."

"Entrust yourself to the sacred **life force of heaven and earth**; draw your heart close to the gods, O brave warriors".

"Progress comes to those who train in the **inner and outer factors**. Do not chase after "secret techniques", for everything is right before your eyes".

It is before your eyes, but it is still deliberately hidden; you cannot make up your own definitions of what he was talking about (as many of the New Age seem to have done) because he is talking about very specific things in his deliberately flowery and obscure way.

Acknowledgements to John Stevens for the translations; he might have altered his translations if he had understood the tradition from which many of the references came.

Interesting thread. Isn't it always the basics that are the most elusive?
As a foundation for aikido, I would agree that aiki is pretty much it. The way to join ki with the partner. Or another reading: the way through ki to reach unity.

For the aikido practicioner, though, I believe that the center, tanden, must be the very root. My first Japanese teacher, Ichimura sensei, stressed it all the time: Be in your center, do it from your center, return to your center...
I say the same to my students, so much that I fear they hear it in their sleep.

In any budo, one needs foremost to awaken one's center, and then to let it be the origin of all. Techniques are born from the center. The beginners need to copy such expressions of the center, to awaken it in themselves.
Then takemusu.

Acknowledgements to John Stevens for the translations; he might have altered his translations if he had understood the tradition from which many of the references came.

I don't know what you are looking for in the way of qualifications but having a Phd in Buddhist studies, living in Japan for decades, being the first foriegner to be a full professor in a Japanese university, and training for many years under one of the giants of early Aikido (Shirata Sensei) ought to give him an edge in this respect, certainly compared to most of us...

I don't know what you are looking for in the way of qualifications but having a Phd in Buddhist studies, living in Japan for decades, being the first foriegner to be a full professor in a Japanese university, and training for many years under one of the giants of early Aikido (Shirata Sensei) ought to give him an edge in this respect, certainly compared to most of us...

It may be helpful to think of it like this: A number of native Japanese live in Japan for decades, know Buddhism and its history quite well in a context that a westerner will never "know" because he hasn't lived it or had it as part of his daily life, some even teach at university level and have done Aikido under respected masters for life.... but they don't know or understand the qi skills and traditions unless they have been introduced to them deliberately by someone who really knows them. It's not a disparagement of Stevens that I was making, it was simply an educated and fairly obvious observation based on his annotations of Ueshiba's doka.

To give Stevens his due, he did note that the doka have meaning on several levels. But despite his other credentials, it is almost completely doubtful that Stevens was also well-versed in the Chinese classical sayings about the training of qi, jin, etc., from which O-Sensei borrowed a number of his words, phrases, euphemisms, etc. Would you agree that is probable?

It's particularly probable since it takes many years and correct teachers who are willing to share *a small number of things with westerners* before Stevens would have had access to and understood what those references mean. My point being that the credentials you're mentioning have little to do with Stevens' ability to decipher comments about "heaven and earth" in relation to ki, the importance of the "six directions", how the "mind intent" (aka "Divine Will") substantively controls the power such that it is the main power of Aikido, and so on.

In other words, if Stevens had understood these things he would have made the translations and annotations quite a bit different. As I mentioned once before, the literal words of many translations belie the actual idiomatic meaning within the closed martial arts societies...if you don't already know those things you don't know what they refer to; if you already know them, you recognize them (they're always so general that you could never learn how to do anything from them, though).

Traditionally only a very few close disciples are normally shown these things whose descriptions are always couched in flowery and obscure terms. Many people seem to take Ueshiba's doka's as the sort of "incoherent ramblings" discussed by some of the uchideshi during some earlier interviews; the terms and phrases meaning little or nothing is the implication. In actuality, Ueshiba is using so many exact wordings from classical descriptions of qi and jin training that it's impossible to ascribe his selected use of those terms as accidental or coincidental. Additionally, when you read the Abe-Sensei-related Misogi translation via John Warner, it's equally obvious that the Japanese had access to some of the Chinese martial qigongs with Buddhist roots. Being an expert on Buddhism does not make someone an expert on Buddhist martial qigongs... those are not part of the common Buddhist fare, even in India and China.

I'd like to meet Stevens. If he ever comes to the U.S. I'd appreciate it if someone would let me know (I'm also in Europe occasionally, so I'd be interested there, as well). This sort of knowledge is not academic, BTW.... an experienced person would know if Stevens knew how to do these things the moment they shook his hand. As odd as that sounds (at one time I didn't believe it either), it's true.

There's an interesting part of these discussions about "ki", etc., that I've noticed over the years and I'd like to point it out. I'm an amateur in respect to real martial arts as the expert Asians viewed them for many generations. I've done martial arts for more than 4 decades and I have "rank" in assorted arts, but I'm an amateur who really has an interest mainly in how these ki-related things work. The problem with most westerners is that they've never really experienced the *massive* power that some of these people (there's many levels) can generate, so the whole discussion of "ki" and related topics is, to them, a fairy tale or has something to do with "parlor tricks" that are a negligible aside to any particular martial art. So what happens in discussions like this is that we tend to be talking about different things, based on our perceptions *and* on what we can physically do and demonstrate.

In my world, which is not a high-level world but more of a journeyman world, I realize that ki and kokyu expertise usually floats among a select few in many/most martial arts. By bringing attention to the topics (remember, this mind-directed ability is what Ueshiba termed "the blade of Aiki"), I'm firstly trying to stick to a thread of logic that I can look back upon in 10 years and not be embarrassed by "what I didn't know then"; secondly, I'm offering a suggested direction to those few who, like me, are not satisfied with the amount of information available on ki-related matters.

At the same time, I'm well aware that not having access to this sort of information is not at all unusual (nor is it anything to be embarrassed about, IMO), but given the fact that it is mentioned in so many Aikido (and other arts, too) writings and given that it's also demonstrated at various levels, it's curious to me that so many "ranked" people who think of themselves as knowledgeable in Aikido and other arts are not any more focused on this "blade of Aiki". In fact, it seems to me very often that most martial arts (I don't mean to single out Aikido in all these discussions, BTW... this happens everywhere) in which the ki things are involved, there is a mindset of "playing to the peanut gallery" rather than playing to the experts. For instance, I could easily "teach" what I know and display my rankings, but on a practical level I know that I'm an amateur... and I wouldn't impress a real expert in these topics or the involved martial arts. If I wanted to impress someone, I'd want to impress the experts, not my fellow students and neophytes as I see so many trying to do. That's the interesting part of some of these discussions I've noted... and I'm not trying to be offensive or belittling in mentioning it, but I wish all the pecking-order, status seeking, peer-forced viewpoints, etc., weren't such big driving forces in the martial arts.

Given your more recent post, "Acknowledgements to John Stevens for the translations; they sound very similar to many of the expressions I have heard about jin and chi from the Chinese tradition." -- would seem to put forth the desired intent quite nicely. When I read:

Quote:

Acknowledgements to John Stevens for the translations; he might have altered his translations if he had understood the tradition from which many of the references came.

I got a different message entirely.

I'm not looking to impress anyone, expert or otherwise. I'm also not interested in a pecking order in a forum. Back to the topic at hand, I would say that a basic element of aikido is that when you walk into a room you do not intimidate anyone and no one intimidates you...

But despite his other credentials, it is almost completely doubtful that Stevens was also well-versed in the Chinese classical sayings about the training of qi, jin, etc., from which O-Sensei borrowed a number of his words, phrases, euphemisms, etc. Would you agree that is probable?

Hi Mike, welcome back. This comment is somewhat interesting. I'd always heard that many of his comments come almost directly from the kojiki and sources like it. Not reading japanese myself, I really couldn't say...

Peter G., Jun, Don, any thoughts?

Best,
Ron (I hear Peter is rather busy just now...might be a while before he can respond)

Ron Tisdale
-----------------------
"The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind."
St. Bonaventure (ca. 1221-1274)

Hi Mike, welcome back. This comment is somewhat interesting. I'd always heard that many of his comments come almost directly from the kojiki and sources like it. Not reading japanese myself, I really couldn't say...

Thanks, Ron. It was a good trip. I saw a good-sized Aikido dojo in Christchurch one day, but it was early in the day and they weren't open.

I don't know what's in the Kojiki, but regardless, "ki" is "qi", etc., and that all comes from the Chinese. As I said, the comments about combining heaven and earth, fire and water, the six directions, and all the rest in Ueshiba's doka leave no doubt that he was in possession of classical Chinese comments about developing qi, etc., and he was espousing those things as the basis of Aikido. Frankly, it surprised me, as I've commented before. If there was any reasonable doubt, I would have jumped on it and pointed it out. There is no reasonable doubt, though.

Let me reiterate that the vagaries in the various doka are sort of a classical brandishment of knowledge and qi/ki had a near-mystical, near-religious connotation among even some sets of the Chinese at that time, so those "poems" were actually sort of standard fare for the earlier times from which the knowledge probably came. Basically, I have to accept that I was wrong in my evaluations of the scope of ki knowledge in Japan and I have to adjust to the idea that this sort of stuff was pretty prevalent across Asia, despite the attempts to keep it "secret".

I doubt that many people in the current "senior" generations in western Aikido, karate, Taiji, etc., will acquire extensive skills in these methods of body use, but it should be helpful for the up and coming generations (the ones who are serious, that is) to get a foothold in what Ueshiba and others were talking about. It wasn't blarney about some mystical universal force that was important, it was the real body skills they attributed to that "force" that should be the focus of inquiries.

And while I realize that some people who are "ranked" in Aikido and other arts may feel "intimidated" by discussions of something they don't have a handle on... i.e., that's just defensive pride... it's still important to move forward and get as much knowledge and skill as is possible in this area that Ueshiba called the "blade of Aiki". The important point to realize is that the upcoming generations of a number of martial arts will indeed learn how to do these things (it has already started) and it will be obvious in retrospect what "ranked" teachers simply didn't really know how to do these things or who were just posturing with guesses. I.e., work never stops, does it?

Sorry I missed you in Boulder. Mark told me he met you and your teacher.

Ueshiba is using so many exact wordings from classical descriptions of qi and jin training that it's impossible to ascribe his selected use of those terms as accidental or coincidental

Quote:

As I said, the comments about combining heaven and earth, fire and water, the six directions, and all the rest in Ueshiba's doka leave no doubt that he was in possession of classical Chinese comments about developing qi, etc., and he was espousing those things as the basis of Aikido.

Is there a known body of work (Chinese?) that consists of the "classics" that you mention?

sorry to intrude..
Is there a known body of work (Chinese?) that consists of the "classics" that you mention?

Hmmmmm.... there's not a devoted "classic" per se, but the comments are quite common as classic or traditional phrases. There's a good VHS tape by Zhang Xue Xin performing one of the better (more complete body coverage of aspects) martial qigongs (Hun Yuan Qigong) in which he mentions "mixing heaven and earth", the "qi of heaven" the "qi of earth" and other things... it also gives you a chance to visually see him showing some movements along with the wordings. Knowing the words won't do you any good. Seeing him do the movements won't do you any good. It's what you do with your body and breath that involve these trainings. My point being that reading what O-Sensei actually said is interesting and academically pleasing, but it won't tell you anything. If you had watched O-Sensei doing these things, it wouldn't tell you any more than watching someone knowledgeable doing Fune Kogi Undo. However, it's relatively easy to tell someone how to do Fune Kogi Undo, compared with telling them how to correctly perform some of the qi conditioning. So you see the problem. Knowing these metaphoric phrases and hearing them discussed doesn't do a lot of good. Hope that's an adequate answer.

There was a point in history where no Zen masters gave transmission to any students, and yet we have Zen masters today. Are they all frauds? No. Then how could this have happened? Well, I think the point is that the information is available at the level of basic human intuition, and it can be re-discovered independent of who thought of it first. Apparently, the story goes, when the first new master called himself a Zen master, the nay-sayers demanded "by what authority do you make this claim?!" and the new master pounded on the ground with his fist and exclaimed "by this authority!".

Independent discovery of such things has happened in the past and will certainly happen again. Of course the past contributes to the present, but how much so is always a reasonable question on a case by case basis. Of course, I'm open to the idea that some of the ki developing methodology were originally Chinese. I'm equally open to the idea that all of these ideas are manifestations of kodotama. I'm open to the idea that the original study of kodotama didn't have to necessarily be Japanese and that they maybe just preserved that particular understanding better, and that the Chinese just preserved their understanding of how to manifest those ideas better given their culture. I certainly don't know any of it for sure and neither does anyone else. That perspective helps keep me truly open-minded, and avoid mental materialism.

I'd always heard that many of his comments come almost directly from the kojiki and sources like it. Not reading japanese myself, I really couldn't say...

Peter G., Jun, Don, any thoughts?

Peter is definately the best man for this job, but I'll offer my comments in the meantime in order to try to keep this interesting thread moving forward. CAVEAT EMPTOR.

Quote:

Mike Sigman wrote:

I don't know what's in the Kojiki, but regardless, "ki" is "qi", etc., and that all comes from the Chinese. As I said, the comments about combining heaven and earth, fire and water, the six directions, and all the rest in Ueshiba's doka leave no doubt that he was in possession of classical Chinese comments about developing qi, etc., and he was espousing those things as the basis of Aikido. Frankly, it surprised me, as I've commented before. If there was any reasonable doubt, I would have jumped on it and pointed it out. There is no reasonable doubt, though.

A little learning is a dangerous thing. It's Greek to me. No man is an island.

I wonder how many Americans know these come from Pope, Shakespeare, and Donne--English poets all. They're just so much a part of the culture that origins are obscured and probably irrelevant.

So to with Chinese influences in Japan. Reading into Shinto history, one will find many qualifications like this regarding "heaven and earth, fire and water, the six directions" and the nuances obtaining between Jpn, Ch, and Indian antecedents.

A position made stridently these days in scholarly circles (in explicit rebuttal to Imperial propaganda of the 30's and contemporary wishful thinking of the Jpn right) is that even the Kojiki is not the "essence" of Jp commonly claimed. Indeed, it was already largely influenced by Chinese thinking when promulgated. Embarrassingly, "Tenno", the term we translate as emperor, is a Taoist, i.e., a Chinese term. "Shinto" is also a Chinese word connoting in Jpn "the bad behavior of the gods" (remember a while back PAG calling the term "KANNAGARA" "Shinto with balls"? In the 30's, idealogues prefered this term to "Shinto" to avoid the unpleasant--and inescapable-- admission of Ch. influence on the "purity" of the Jpn.)

It's all well and good to find resemblances, but it is probably going too far to hold that "there is no reasonable doubt" though. I'd wager that the founder had quite enough grist for his mill in the Jpn tradition, consisting as it does of a lot of foreign influences.

I do like Mr. Sigman's demystification of Osensei's sayings, though. I agree that what Osensei said was pretty much canon in mystical practice and not at all out of mainstream esoteric--"for the initiated"--discourse. Most of us and even Osensei's students simply weren't initiated.

I enjoy Don's perspectives very much.
Being Japanese is no guarantee to have exclusive access to Japanese tradition, or to undeerstand it at all.

Me, I am Swedish, but I am still sure that there are lots of folks in the world who understand the norse myths, or an Ingmar Bergman movie, better than I do.

On the other hand, Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren got so good at the Chinese language, he could teach the Chinese scholars a thing or two about it.

We are aikido students, so we know: Wherever you are, whoever you are, to learn something you must study it.

Another thing: China and Japan are two different countries and cultures, even though they use the same "alphabet". A Japanese understanding of the Chinese classics is not necessarily the same as a Chinese understanding of them.

As an historian of ideas, I have also been taught that there is a context to be considered. For example, the Chinese classics were certainly read differently in the days of their appearance, than in any other era thereafter.
There is no absolute in culture. What a book means, is something that is born in the meeting with its reader. There is seldom a definite right or wrong reading of it.

So, what Chinese classics to go to, for words on (pinyin spelling qi)? Pretty much anyone of the Confucian classics, I'd say. It's scattered all over, more or less. I Ching (pinyin Yi jing) contains the fundamentals of ancient Chinese cosmology (yin and yang and their dynamics). The most lengthy treatments of are found in texts on Chinese medicine, where the Yellow Emperor's Classic (Huang Ti Nei Ching) is the nestor.

Me, I favor the perspective of philosophical taoism, such as in Tao Te Ching (pinyin Dao De Jing). is only mentioned a couple of times in it, but its cosmology is sweet. Other taoist texts elaborated more on the subject of , especially within the so called religious taoism, the guys who tried to live forever.

Tao Te Ching, with its message of non-interference and calmness in the turmoil of life, has a lot to say to the aikido student - especially in widening the concept of the way, .

What would be interesting now, is to take some of the doka, or some relevent parts of the kojiki, and look at various translations, to see what can be pieced together in terms of using the breath, the mind leading the ki, etc.Ellis Amdur did a contemporary reading of one of Ueshiba Sensei's speaches at aikido journal...I wonder if that text would make a good start.

Don, would you know of a particular text that exists in Japanese and english that might be readily available, and that we might suggest as a good starting place?

Jun, would you happen to have Takemusu Aiki in Japanese?

Ellis, would you be willing to look at that text with the ideas Mike has presented? I know you have a pretty strong background in Chinese arts as well...which I certainly don't have.